Boat #197, USSR

Boat #198, Ecuador

Boat #199, Japan

Boat #200, Italy

Our first visit to Italy this year...

Boat #201, Belgium

Boat #202, Chile

Boat #203, Maldives

Earlier this year we visiting Maldives via another stamp from this same family. It's one of my favorite stamp sets in my collection so I thought it be nice to come back for another look.

Boat #204, Peru

Did you know that Peru fought Chile in a war on the Pacific way back in 1879? I didn't. This battle took place on May 21, 1879. The Peruvian monitor Huascar, under the command of Captain Miguel Grau, fought and sunk the Chilean vessel, Esmerelda. The collapse of the Chilean corvette resulted in the lifting of the blockade on the Bay of Iquique.

Boat #205, Niue (and Cook Islands)

Niue is an island nation in the South Pacific. It lies 2,400 kilometers northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to the southeast. Niue is commonly referred to as "The Rock" by its roughly 1,400 residents.

Trivia question for the day: What was the first nation in the world to go completely WiFi?

Answer: Niue

Boat #206, Poland

Boat #207, Japan

Boat #208, Monaco (and Jules Verne)

Une ville flottante, for those of you who don't speak French, translates as A Floating City—the title of a Jules Verne novel that I've not yet had the opportunity to read.

Boat #209, Greece

Boat #210, New Zealand

Boat #211, United States

More rowing today, though a bit more leisurely...

Boat #212, United States

In conjunction with the rowing team tryouts that have been going on for the last two weeks near my house...

Boat #213, Hungary

Boat #214, Falkland Islands (With a little Norway, Dodge City, and Aboriginal Australia mixed in)

The Wyatt Earp? A strange name for a Commonwealth ship, no? Well, I did some research.

From Wikipedia:

The ship was constructed as a single-deck motor vessel named FV Fanejord, built from pine and oak for the Norwegian herring fishing trade. While being a motorised vessel, her masts and booms normally used for cargo handling were capable of being rigged for sailing in an emergency. She was purchased by the American explorer and aviator, Lincoln Ellsworth, for his 1933 Antarctic expedition, refitted and sheathed with oak and armour plate, and renamed Wyatt Earp after the marshal of Dodge City and Tombstone, Arizona. Wyatt Earp was used on four of Ellsworth's Antarctic expeditions between 1933 and 1939, primarily as a base ship for his aircraft.

In February 1939, Wyatt Earp was purchased from Ellsworth by the Government of Australia and handed over to the RAN, which intended to use the ship as a Fleet Auxiliary (Ammunition and Store Carrier). In September 1939, it was decided to rename her Boomerang, but the name was already in use by another Australian vessel. Instead, the ship was commissioned on 25 October 1939 as Wongala, an Australian Aborigine word meaning boomerang.

How's that for multi-culturalism?!

Boat #215, Israel

Boat #216, Ann Arbor

Today's boat isn't a stamp, as you can see. But as a postcard it still fits very much into the postal tradition. Besides, stamps with an Ann Arbor theme aren't so easy to come by. I have yet to see a boat of this size floating around in Argo pond, but perhaps a hundred years ago they were as common as the kayaks and canoes are today. I think it'd be great if you could rent a steamboat from the Argo Livery.

Anyhow, it's a great weekend to be in Ann Arbor. Today, Saturday, is the Homegrown Festival in the Kerrytown Farmer's Market—great local food and good, free, live music into the late evening hours. Tomorrow, also in Kerrytown, is the Kerrytown Book Festival. Stop by the festival at 3pm to hear local bookstore owner Nicola Rooney (Nicola's Books) interview Caldecott award winner David Small. Perhaps even more exciting, stop by Nicola's tent at 1:00pm and get your copy of A Sick Day for Amos McGee signed by the author, Philip Stead, and the illustrator, Philip's lovely wife Erin. Philip is quoted as saying, "This will likely be my most poignant signing to date, as I've been feeling under the weather for the last two weeks."

Boat #217, Maryland

Boat #218, Connecticut

Today we begin a mini 2-stop road trip along the East Coast. Tomorrow: Maryland.

Boat #219, Falkland Islands

Boat #220, El Salvador

Stamps, like people, are likely to have weathered a bit by the time they reach 114 years old.

Boat #221, USSR - Labor Day!

It seems appropriate that we honor the late, not-so-great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on this, our most communist of national holidays.

Boat #222, Grenada

Boat #223, Greece

Boat #224, New York City

Boat #225, Panama Canal

Boat #226, Tugboating in Israel

Everybody likes a good tugboat.